# HEY! WTF happened to my Firefox?? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [December 23, 2005, 4:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-wtf-happened-to-my-firefox/336927 "2005-12-23T04:00:30Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![pkbites](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pkbites/32/204_2.png) [@pkbites](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pkbites)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2005, 4:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-wtf-happened-to-my-firefox/336927/1 "2005-12-23T04:00:30Z")
I’ve been using Mozilla Firefox since last May. No spyware. No popups. It’s great. Today for some reason all my book marks are gone. Vanished! All 75 of them! 😕 WTF? What happened? ---
**Author:** ![Agnostic\_Pagan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c4cdca/32.png) [@Agnostic\_Pagan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Agnostic_Pagan)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2005, 4:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-wtf-happened-to-my-firefox/336927/2 "2005-12-23T04:50:45Z")
This happened to me earlier today. Odd. It kept popping up with a box to select a user config, telling me that ‘default’ was in use and could not open. WTF? All my programs were closed at that point. I finally relented and selected a ‘default user’ name, hoping to switch back. No idea how. Finally, I went into the system folders to see if my settings were still there. Fortunately there were. This is for Windows XP Dive down to: C:/Documents and Setting/(Your Windows Username)/Mozilla/Firefox/Profiles/ There should be your subfolder with your configuration. I had to delete the new one,(moved to recycle bin, then deleted after) and my correct one returned when I opened Mozilla again. I have no idea why it happened, let alone how to prevent it from occuring again. ---
**Author:** ![Rico](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rico/32/3582_2.png) [@Rico](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rico)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2005, 4:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-wtf-happened-to-my-firefox/336927/3 "2005-12-23T04:59:20Z")
If you’re using Windows XP, close all running instances of Firefox, open the Task Manager (CTRL-ALT-DELETE), click Processes, and there should be an open phantom Firefox or two. End the task and re-open Firefox. Your bookmarks should return. One of the many reasons I no longer use Firefox. This is a by-product of the dreaded [memory leak](http://www.informationweek.com/news/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=175007152) that has affected most builds of Firefox. I sure wish they’d fix it. ---
**Author:** ![mhendo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mhendo/32/3159_2.png) [@mhendo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mhendo)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2005, 4:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-wtf-happened-to-my-firefox/336927/4 "2005-12-23T04:59:22Z")
> [@Agnostic Pagan](#): > > This happened to me earlier today. Odd. It kept popping up with a box to select a user config, telling me that ‘default’ was in use and could not open. WTF? All my programs were closed at that point. > > I finally relented and selected a ‘default user’ name, hoping to switch back. No idea how. If this happens again, hit CTRL-ALT-DEL and click on the Processes tab. Even if Firefox is not running in the Applications tab, there will probably be an instance of firefox.exe running in Processes. Select firefox.exe, click the End Process button, and then restart Firefox, and everything should be fine. ---
**Author:** ![Agnostic\_Pagan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c4cdca/32.png) [@Agnostic\_Pagan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Agnostic_Pagan)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2005, 5:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-wtf-happened-to-my-firefox/336927/5 "2005-12-23T05:18:13Z")
> [@mhendo](#): > > If this happens again, hit CTRL-ALT-DEL and click on the Processes tab. Even if Firefox is not running in the Applications tab, there will probably be an instance of firefox.exe running in Processes. > > Select firefox.exe, click the End Process button, and then restart Firefox, and everything should be fine. I forgot that I had done this part. I’m new to XP and still getting used to the Processes tab. I did not do so until after I selected the new user config though, so I still had to dig that out. But thanks, I will remember to do that first next time. (I always get nervous when I kill a process, is that bad, or meh?) AP ---
**Author:** ![Agnostic\_Pagan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c4cdca/32.png) [@Agnostic\_Pagan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Agnostic_Pagan)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2005, 5:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-wtf-happened-to-my-firefox/336927/6 "2005-12-23T05:22:02Z")
> [@Rico](#): > > One of the many reasons I no longer use Firefox. This is a by-product of the dreaded [memory leak](http://www.informationweek.com/news/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=175007152) that has affected most builds of Firefox. > > I sure wish they’d fix it. Thanks for the link. What browser do you use? Any recommendations? ---
**Author:** ![pkbites](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pkbites/32/204_2.png) [@pkbites](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pkbites)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2005, 5:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-wtf-happened-to-my-firefox/336927/7 "2005-12-23T05:28:27Z")
> [@Agnostic Pagan](#): > > There should be your subfolder with your configuration. I had to delete the new one,(moved to recycle bin, then deleted after) and my correct one returned when I opened Mozilla again. WTF? 😕 I could not find it. Only the new configuration was there. Now I’m REALLY PISSED! My bookmarks are all gone! > [@Rico](#): > > One of the many reasons I no longer use Firefox. This is a by-product of the dreaded [memory leak](http://www.informationweek.com/news/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=175007152) that has affected most builds of Firefox. > I sure wish they’d fix it. 8 months and this is the first time it’s happened to me!:mad: By the way…the “HOTMAIL” button is no longer on tool bar. How do I get that back? ---
**Author:** ![Grither](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/grither/32/425_2.png) [@Grither](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grither)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2005, 6:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-wtf-happened-to-my-firefox/336927/8 "2005-12-23T06:26:18Z")
> [@pkbites](#): > > WTF? 😕 I could not find it. Only the new configuration was there. Now I’m REALLY PISSED! My bookmarks are all gone! > > 8 months and this is the first time it’s happened to me!:mad: > > By the way…the “HOTMAIL” button is no longer on tool bar. How do I get that back? Reboot your machine. That’ll do the same thing as listed above. ---
**Author:** ![Rico](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rico/32/3582_2.png) [@Rico](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rico)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2005, 6:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-wtf-happened-to-my-firefox/336927/9 "2005-12-23T06:36:08Z")
Browsers: I hate to admit it, but I went back to IE. I tried Opera for a while, but just couldn’t get used to it. Opera hasn’t had any problems like Firefox _when_ I’ve used it, however. ---
**Author:** ![pkbites](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pkbites/32/204_2.png) [@pkbites](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pkbites)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2005, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-wtf-happened-to-my-firefox/336927/10 "2005-12-23T17:49:27Z")
> [@Grither](#): > > Reboot your machine. That’ll do the same thing as listed above. No, it didn’t! And now I can’t connect to firefox at all! I’m using IE which I don’t want to do on account that when I used to use it i had a zilion problems with pop-ups and spyware! Why can’t I connect to Firefox? All I get is a blank page (with toolbars at the top) and it’s trying to connect but doesn’t! > [@Agnostic Pagan](#): > > This happened to me earlier today. Odd. It kept popping up with a box to select a user config, telling me that ‘default’ was in use and could not open. that’s what happened to me yesterday. What did they do? Improve it until it didn’t work?